


Wash Away

by atamascolily



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dysphoria, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:04:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23167147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Callista broods over her new body, even as Luke offers an opportunity to come clean.
Relationships: Callista Ming/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 17
Kudos: 8





	Wash Away

**Author's Note:**

> As I wrote in the comments for [Ocean Soul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22821058), I mentioned how there are two scenarios for Luke/Callista - dreamy ghost sex, and angsty dysphoria. Since I'd already written dreamy ghost sex, I figured I'd try my hand at angsty dysphoria and complete the set. 
> 
> Thanks to evilmouse for her awesome beta!!

Callista stares at the dead woman in the mirror, daring her to blink first. Of course, she blinks first. She always does.

Her new face is lovely. There is no disputing that objective fact, even if she wanted to. It's not hers, not really, no matter what the reflection says--but this is her reality now, and there's no turning back.

She had wanted to live, more than anything else. But she hadn't counted on the body.

This body.

_Her_ body.

Or hers _now_, anyway.

And that was the crux of it. The body she'd been born with died thirty years ago, dust and bone in the gunnery of the _Eye of Palpatine_ for thirty years...now floating in orbit around Belsavis. Before that, _this_ body had belonged to Dr. Cray Mingla, Jedi Knight-in-training. And in the chaos of those final moments before the explosion, they'd... exchanged, somehow.

Callista still doesn't know how exactly Cray did it, and she'd _been_ there.

But she suspects it only worked because Cray understood computers as well as she understood the Force--and understood Callista, too. Understood how much Callista yearned to be embodied, to follow the one she loved however she could.

By all objective standards, Cray's decision made no sense. She'd had it all—beauty, genius, the Force—and she'd given it all up in a heartbeat. Had handed Callista her body as if it had been nothing more than a coat she was all too ready to shed. Moved on to the next thing, what lay beyond—whatever that was—further than Callista herself had ever gone.

Stunning, vibrant Cray had committed suicide, out of grief for her own lost partner. Had reasoned aloud that if she couldn't be happy, then Callista ought to be. And Callista had stood by and let her do it.

Because she'd wanted to live.

It was that simple. That selfish.

In some ways, Callista thinks, frowning at the mirror, Cray was braver than Callista has ever been in either of her two strange lives. Callista hadn't dared to die the first time, back when the _Eye_ was still a threat, and she hadn't wanted to die the second time, even though she'd accepted it as the inevitable price of victory. To wake up every morning here on Yavin—alive and incarnate—is a gift she never dreamed was possible before it happened.

So why does she hate this body so much?

Because it isn't really _hers_. The Force knows that—that's why it doesn't speak to her anymore—and so does she. And she can't shake the feeling that the body knows it, too. That it sees her as an interloper, an intruder, an enemy. That it fights her just as much as she fights it.

The moral of so many childhood fairy tales hits her again: _Be careful what you wish for_. That line is repeated over and over again in the stories that her master, Djinn Altis told her in the evenings after long days of training, the ones of clever and not-so-clever Jedi over the years, and the many, many permutations of ancient wisdom passed down through the centuries in their lineage. Now, Callista is a story, too—Tionne has seen to that—a story so fantastic it might as well _be_ a fairy tale.

Though she's still not certain about the "happily ever after" part. Cray had seemed satisfied with _her_ ending—after all, it had been her idea. But Callista is all too aware of her naïveté in believing that maybe, just maybe, she'd have a happy ending of her own.

She stares down at the hands in front of her with its long, dexterous fingers—for all intents and purposes, hers. They are capable of grace, if only she could figure out how to use them. The ragged tips of the nails have started to regrow, though the beds are still scratched and battered. The faint pink chips of polish they'd carried when Cray wore them has long since faded.

Her hair is blonde now, the jagged stubble gradually smoothing. The hair closest to the scalp is slowly growing in brown, through some psychosomatic mechanism she doesn't understand, and can't happen fast enough. Maybe when her hairs fills in in its proper color, she won't recoil so much from the stranger in the mirror looking back at her. Maybe such a simple change could contain her instinctive recoil.

_I am changing this body. And this body is changing me._ That thought scares her, too, in an entirely different way.

But until then, her resemblance to Luke is uncanny—from a distance, she can easily pass as a feminine version of the man indirectly responsible for her new existence. Their faces are similar enough they could be mistaken for siblings now, with the same pale hair and angled jawlines. Only their eyes are different—his the pale blue of clear Yavin skies, the hers the gray of overcast twilight. Two different shades of atmosphere in variable weather. When they stand side by side, she can't escape the fear of being mistaken for his shadow.

This is unfair to Luke, and she knows it. He is everything she'd ever asked for in a lover--gentle, patient, kind. He is generous with his time and energy, determined to do the right thing, no matter the cost to himself. In the darkened corridors of the _Eye of Palpatine_, he blazed with an intensity that was more than metaphorical, carving a path as best he could through the tangled chaos of the ship.

And there is nothing wrong with this body, not that can be detected. The medics on Belsavis dubbed her perfectly healthy when they released her after the _Eye_’s destruction. Cilghal, Luke's student with healing gifts, has found nothing out of the ordinary.

But they are wrong. She is too old for this body, too old and out of time, out of place, with everything in the universe. Everyone she knew before is dead—her past self included—and there is no way back to the person she once was. Not that there is any place in the Jedi code for self-pity.

But she isn't a Jedi anymore. She isn't Callista Masana anymore, but she isn't Cray Mingla, either. She’s some hybrid mixture of the two, and stumbling through the dark as she finds her way to live as this new being.

Ostensibly, Callista lives in Cray's quarters here in the Great Temple, but in reality, she spends all her nights and most of her days with Luke. It's just as well—Cray's room is so full of ghosts she can't see or touch, too full of possessions that aren't hers, that there's no rest for Callista there. The clothes are her size, of course, but none of the makeup or jewelry are to her taste, and she doesn't know whether to keep it or toss it out. In the end, she piles it all into a corner and stays as far away as she can.

Cray was a perfectionist, driven to extremes by circumstances. _How much of what I feel now is because of her, somatic memories I'm not consciously aware of? How much of what I feel is me, and how much is this body’s influence?_

Too bad the only person who could help her with this died in her creation. The irony is palpable.

As far as the official records are concerned, she _is_ Cray now, even if she'd put in the paperwork to change her name to Callista three days after she'd woken up in this body. But it means she can access Cray's files and accounts, since everything is coded to her finger and voice prints, or her face. None of the systems have commented on her apparent change of eye color, making her wonder if that detail even registers, or if it’s a hallucination on her part.

Even without Cray's identity to speed access, it's easier to key into the terminal now—easier to talk to machines in general, no matter what she needs from them. Most of them are so sweetly stupid, it's hard to get mad at them for carrying out orders—however misguided—but even the smart ones are so logical and _predictable_ compared to living beings that it’s easy to manipulate them into doing what she wants. It's frightening that she's spent so long among machines that she finds them better company than people. But some days, she thinks it would be easier if she’d stayed a machine—at least then, she wouldn’t hurt so much.

She's gone through enough of the files left to her to have a vivid picture of who Cray was before their meeting on the _Eye_. The highly technical manuals—so complex they make Callista's head spin, and she _existed_ in a computer for decades—are a stark contrast to the fashionable clothing in Cray's quarters on Yavin, and the eye-popping shades of pink she favored for her nails. The holos of a smiling Cray posing with her lover Nichos before his diagnosis with Quannot's Syndrome twist Callista's heart every time.

Cray pushed herself to the brink of death to save Nichos from his disease—and when that wasn't possible, she built a droid body for his soul to inhabit. It was the exact same transfer of essence she'd done with Callista—only Nichos died in the process. Cray had replicated Nichos’s brain down to the synapses; the result was a droid with all of Nichos’s memories, enough for Cray to delude herself that her lover had survived after all.

Luke had known. Callista had known. Everyone had known the truth but Cray. “Nichos”’s eyes weren’t human, and his smile wasn't right. Even if Cray had succeeded, it’s not the fate Callista would have wanted for herself. Still, she understands why Cray tried, why Nichos accepted. And she understood why, when droid-Nichos had sacrificed himself to destroy the _Eye_ once at for all, Cray had joined him, when she didn't have to.

Callista is slowly working her way through Cray's notes about the process responsible for droid-Nichos (and, perhaps, herself), parsing the coding line by line. In spite of her distaste about her predecessor's application of that knowledge, she's curious—maybe there is something in those files that will reveal what went wrong, finally restore her connection to the Force. She's not a genius, not like Cray, and she'll never finish the work, and maybe it's a fool's errand anyway. But it gives her something to do here besides brood.

The files are disturbing. The worst are the classified articles on entechment, where life energy is drained to power machines. Luke has told her stories about his battles with the Ssi-ruuk, an alien empire on the galactic outskirts that base their entire civilization on this process. They'd been very excited about Luke's abilities with the Force, hoping to brainwash him into luring new victims to their doom. Just the thought makes Callista shiver—especially since it's not so different from what she and Cray have done.

Not for the first time, Callista wonders if she's an abomination, if that's why the Force abandoned her. Luke swears up and down it isn't so, but she's not so sure. She is weary of the dislike and mistrust on peoples' faces when they find out what she is now, and who she is—or who she isn't. People are surprised. People are suspicious. People are _jealous_.

"Jealous of what?" Luke always asks rhetorically when she brings it up, always missing the point.

Callista sighs. She's seen the way Mara Jade looks at Luke when she thinks no one else can see. Not to mention the way Mara Jade looks at _her_—

Luke swears up and down there's nothing between them, and Mara would deny it if anyone was fool enough to ask her, but Callista knows the truth, even if they don't. There's too much tension when the two of them are in the same room for it to be otherwise.

But Luke is such an innocent. Not only is he oblivious to that particular thermal detonator, it doesn't occur to him that people might be jealous of their relationship or seek to use it against them—especially when some of them believe she’s still Cray. She can see it in their faces, their skepticism with this whole change-of-identity business, their belief that it's a poor attempt to cover up on a religious authority's abuse of power in sleeping with a student. And though it frustrates Luke to no end, Callista understand their reasoning all too well. The truth is too outrageous to believe when there are far more convenient lies.

Luke, too, has suffered through so much in recent months, despite the happy ending for them. They're both recovering, navigating the awkward situation they find themselves in. What was clear and simple when they first met on the _Eye_ is now tangled and complex. Yet Luke's devotion to her has never wavered—he has complete faith in her, in himself—and she wishes she shared his confidence.

_It's not all bad,_ she reminds herself fiercely. _There's sunlight and air here on Yavin, important in their own rights, but especially now that she has a body again. Not to mention water—_

Water. Right. She is here in the 'fresher for a quick shower, distracted by her reflection and all it entails. Again.

She sighs and strips off her shirt, bracing for what's to come.

If her face is upsetting, the rest of her body is worse. Her legs are too long, there’s a scar across her elbow that shouldn’t be there, and her breasts are bigger than she's used to, though not by much. Thank goodness for small favors. She didn't know how she'd fight if Cray had been as busty as Tionne or even Kirana Ti.

At least she can still fight. Her mind remembers that much, even if her muscle memory has vanished, and she must relearn the each form in agonizing detail before her speed and grace returns. She and Luke still spar with lightsabers, even though she suspects he humors her in letting her win as much as she does.

The walls and floor of the shower itself are the same gray limestone of the rest of the Temple, a cozy cocoon carved into the rock. She has to duck her head to get through the doorway lest she knock it against the frame. This body is tall enough that it’s all too easy to smack herself in the face when she's not careful (to say nothing of what it does to her swordplay). At least the Great Temple has actual plumbing—not just sonic—but that does mean she has to dodge the low-hanging shower head, too.

(They'd called them 'freshers, in her day, both the room and the device, but language had shifted in thirty years and things changed. She's still getting used to this one, still tripping up at the most unlikely things, just like she trips over the door frames or her own feet these days.)

She turns the water on as hot as she can stand it. She grabs the bar of soap from the recessed shelf carved out of the wall, and scrubs with vigor, as if she could wash away this body completely by scouring her skin enough.

The steady spray calms her, reminds her of her old life, growing up on the water-world of Chad before Master Altis came and everything changed. She and Luke have talked about going back for a visit but it hasn't happened yet. He's too busy right now, he says, but soon. Very soon.

To be honest, Callista's relieved by this delay. As much as she yearns to see her home planet, it’s also terrifying. There wouldn't be anything there for her either. She'd left it so young... walked away. Her father, stepmother, her uncles, several cousins. Were they even still alive? Would they remember her?

"Callista?" It's Luke, of course. In the old days, she would have sensed his presence long before now, but she’s deaf and blind now to anything outside the obvious.

"Hi, Luke," she calls back over the roar of water. The words were scratchy and dry, and her voice was all wrong—too high-pitched. She clears her throat and tries again. "I'll be out in a moment."

"No, it's fine," Luke says—closer this time. He must be just outside the 'fresher door now. "Mind if I join you?"

She looks down at her objectively naked body, her skin red and tender from the hot water and the endless scrubbing. There's nowhere to go. No place to hide. No way out.

_I hate you_. The thought rises abruptly out of her consciousness and Callista shudders because for a moment she doesn't know whether she means him or herself.

The silence stretches out, increasingly awkward as the seconds tick past.

"Callista? You okay in there?" The concern in his voice is impossible to miss. She doesn't even have see his face to know his expression. It's a look frequently on his face when he’s worried about her, and she hates it, every time.

"It's fine," she lies, placing what remains of the soap carefully back in its place. _He's_ not the problem—she is, with this treacherous body, but there's no help for it now, and she doesn't want to trouble him further. "Come on in."

He must have taken his clothes off as she deliberated, or perhaps he was just eager to see her, because the shower door opens right away, and he strides naked into spray. His hair is plastered against his skull even before the water hits him. He must have been training out in the courtyard again with some of the more advanced students, and her heart aches with envy.

Callista makes way for him as he wraps his arms around her. The shower’s big enough for both of them, but it doesn't feel that way, not when she's this awkward and clumsy. She maneuvers herself so she faces away from him, his bare chest pressing into her back. It's easier if she can’t see him watching her.

Luke's only two centimeters taller, so it's easy for him to whisper in her ear. "I wondered if I'd catch you here. How are you?"

"It doesn't _feel_ right," she says, wondering if this time would be different and she'd be able to explain.

"What doesn't feel right?"

She closes her eyes. Where to start? "This body. This mind. I just... don't feel like myself anymore." Then the secret fear, the one she's never confessed before. "I think I'm forgetting what it feels like to _be_ myself."

It hurts him that he can't help her. It's why she doesn't like to talk to him about this at all if she can help it. But who else could she talk to? Who else understands her the way he does?

Who else knew her back when she was still _herself_—

"You’re still _you_, Callista. Your mind and your body may be out of sync for a while, but they’ll adapt. Just give it time. The Force will return to you, I know it."

His earnestness makes her heart melt and her legs weak. She leans against him, letting Luke support her. She wants to believe him, but she can't. Hope hurts. She doesn't dare trust it, not after so many disappointments. "I don't know if I believe that."

Luke isn’t deterred. She loves that about him. "We'll find a way, Callista, I know it. It's just a matter of time. I know it's hard, but we'll figure it out somehow..."

She envies him his steadfastness, his confidence in her, even when she didn't deserve it. But why _shouldn't_ he be confident? He'd done so much already in such a short time—so very young, and with so little training compared to what she’d had with Master Altis.

“I love you,” Luke whispers, pulling away from her to trace a finger down the length of her spine. “I know it’s hard—I know you’re grieving. So much has changed, but my feelings haven’t. And they never will…”

_That’s not the point_, she wants to scream, but the words catch in her throat and she can't get them out.

He buries his face in her neck, hitting the sore point where her tensions are buried. She goes limp on reflex, which isn't a yes to his unspoken questions, but it's not a no either, so he continues planting kisses down her back, bringing his hands up to cup her breasts.

She shudders at the contact, reaches a hand out to steady herself against the wall. There's not much room left to slip, but she doesn't want to fall, not when her balance is already so compromised. Luke leans close again, the press of his cock hard and stiff against her ass where his mouth has just been.

"Do you want me to...?" he asks, his breath hot in her ear as his hands trace elliptical orbits across her chest.

"_Yes_," she says, because it's true. Like her body, sex is an echo of the possibilities she remembers, and after the intimacy of mind-to-mind contact, mere physicality is a poor substitute. But it's all she has, and she'd be a fool to turn it down, particularly not when it means so much to Luke.

In the dimly-lit corridors of the _Eye_, Luke had shone with power and purpose, a beacon in the chaos of the derelict ship. It was Luke's kindness that had first drawn her attention. Luke is always kind, even when he doesn't have to be.

His right hand—the artificial one, not that it matters—snakes downward between her legs, the synthflesh feathery and light, trickling like water over her skin. She moans, and the pressure increases as she rocks against him. His left hand wraps around her chest, holding her up even as he fondles her breasts.

For a few minutes, she can forget what she is, where she is, who she is. The world is hot water and Luke, pressure and release, light and stars, as she spasms forward, bucking and screaming under Luke's touch.

Orgasms are different in this body, too, but at least one thing had stayed the same, and that was the lightness, the headiness of release. Luke doesn't relax his grip as she sags against him, which is for the best. At this point, her hands against the wall served no functional purpose—he's the only thing supporting her now.

"There, that's better," he says, pleased with himself, and she's acutely aware he's still hard against her. He tilts his head and kisses her cheek. "I love you, Callista. May I...?"

He’s so earnest, so eager. He still wants her, even in this body. (Maybe even _because_ of this body, the voice in the back of her mind hisses.) Out of all of the beings in the galaxy, he'd chosen _her_. He would have sacrificed himself to save her on the _Eye_ if she and Cray had let him. And far be it for her to deny him what she wanted so dearly for herself.

She didn't deserve this. Didn't deserve _any_ of this. And yet here she is, nodding, taking him up on his offer.

_Love me. No holding back. No attachments. This body. This mind_—

With the Force he would know what she wants without having to say it, but there's no help for it.

"Yes," she breathes—but instead of turning to face him as he expects, she thrusts her hips backwards against him, pressing her arms against the 'fresher wall for balance. "Don't stop," she says, to ward off argument.

She can't bear the thought of him seeing her face—her beautiful, traitorous face. Luke is so eager and sincere it hurts, and today the only way she can bear that much pain is to turn away for a while. All she wants now is to feel—raw, alive, _herself_. Maybe if they do it this way she can pretend that nothing has changed.

He doesn't like it, but he gets the hint. For a second, his weight disappears as he backs off, long enough for him to spread her ass and re-position himself. She tilts her hips to accommodate him, and he pushes into her with a sigh of relief and welcome that thrills her to the core because it means he still cares.

Once he settles inside, his right hand comes back between her legs, stroking her in time with his thrusts. She digs her hands into the 'fresher wall, bracing herselfand moving with him. Even as he plunges into her, she can't help but notice that their minds remain infuriatingly separate, and the emptiness is jarring—

The silence in her head is deafening, drowning out the rush from the shower and Luke's short, sharp pants. _I'm alone_, Callista realizes in sudden panic, even as her body spasms under Luke's touch, _I can't ever really know him, he can't ever really know me, and I’m so alone—_

And she comes again, shuddering and sobbing so fast she would have slammed her head against the shower wall if Luke hadn't pulled her back at the last possible second. He's still inside her, and the ensuing tangle of feet ends with both of them collapsed on the stone, limp and dripping in the torrent of water cascading down from above.

"Sorry about that," Luke says, pulling free, and hauling her into his lap. “Are you all right?”

She nods shakily, and sits up to steady herself. old good humor returns, and she laughs at the ridiculousness of it all. She kneels down on the tile on her hands and knees. "Let's try that again from a more stable position..."

He laughs, too, before he pushes into her again—quick bursts that rapidly built to crescendo, just like his swordplay. Precise. Thorough. Elegant. Devastating—

He cries out, and she doesn't feel anything, she ought to feel _something_, some echo of his pleasure however small, but she doesn't feel anything, anything at all—

"I love you, Callista," Luke says again when it's over. They are curled together on the floor, his head resting on her neck and his bare chest a comforting pressure against her back as hot water rains around them. He flicks a hand upward. The shower handle twists and the stream cuts off.

Callista inhales sharply at his casual use of power.

_I am going to leave him_. The thought bubbles up out of nowhere, blossoming like a deadly flower, poisoning everything with its truth. She chokes back a sob of panic. _No! No, I won't. I love Luke, he loves me, I—_

There's no way Luke can miss her spasm, and he doesn't. He shifts, too, propping himself up on one elbow for a better view of her face, and she turns away, not wanting him to see. "Callista? Are you sure I didn’t hurt you? You're crying—"

"I’m fine," she lies. "It's just this body, I—"

"Callista," he said gently, tracing her cheek. "It's all right. I understand."

She grits her teeth, determined not to flinch. He thinks he understands, but he doesn’t. He tries. But his inner life is opaque to her now, and she doesn’t know how else to bridge the gap between them. How else to explain how _wrong_ this body is, how nothing ever feels right? How maddening to know that _this_ is her life now, and there is no escaping it, not ever—

"You and I still fit," she says instead, because it's true, even though it's not the whole of it.

"And we always will," he says. "We'll get through this. Together."

She doesn't say anything to that, because she wants to believe him. Wants it to be true.

_I'm leaving him,_ Callista thinks to herself, testing it out to herself, the way she might try on a dress, or a pair of shoes—or a body. _I'm leaving him._

This body knows the truth. Deep down inside, she already has.


End file.
